Albuquerque's suburbs are among the poorest in the country

The suburbs were once considered a more desirable place to live, but numbers released Monday show it's now a popular place for poverty.

Albuquerque's suburbs are among the poorest in the country. Published Monday, a new book called "Confronting Suburban Poverty in American" compared the top metropolitan areas in the country, and Albuquerque ranks eighth with 17 percent of the people in its suburbs considered poor.

"It's not surprising but it's bad," said Loni Hodge of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. "It's a day to day struggle, week to week, month to month for many New Mexicans and their families."

Numerous families moved to suburbs in Sandoval, Valencia, Torrance and Bernalillo counties in hopes of economic prosperity.

"That's a result of people being driven out of the city by lack of jobs, by the cost of living in the city," Hodge said.

When things turned bad, Hodge said the suburbs suffered because they don't have the same support systems as major cities.

"They have a total lack of access," Hodge said.

The area that topped the list for suburban poverty was El Paso.

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